Questions are being asked about the power and training of Alberta’s private security guards in the wake of a widely circulated video that shows a violent struggle between a man and several guards outside Chinook Centre on Saturday.

The video — posted on YouTube over the weekend and already viewed nearly 6,000 times — seems to show a security guard punching a man that was pinned to the ground by several other officers. The incident happened March 16 as security guards from the mall apprehended the man, who identifies himself as Dan Doussept, 31.

The reason for the struggle isn’t clear.

A spokeswoman for the Calgary Police Service said Monday the situation is being investigated “in its entirety,” from what led to the altercation to the struggle itself. Doussept received a trespassing summons from the Calgary Police Service, the spokeswoman confirmed.

But some experts say that, regardless of what happened before a bystander started filming the struggle outside the mall, the video speaks for itself.

“I don’t like what I see. I’m at a bit of a loss to understand what this individual did here that he would have been physically taken down and arrested,” said David Hyde, a private security consultant with 25 years of shopping security experience in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario.

Peter Ashworth, a 30-year veteran of London’s Metropolitan Police Service who helped author the course used to train security guards in Alberta, said the force used in the incident is excessive.

“That’s clearly overkill,” Ashworth said after viewing the video.

The video begins with Doussept pinned to the ground by four security guards. A guard yells at him to stop fighting while Doussept yells that he didn’t do anything. He yells “quit smashing my face!” and another security guard approaches. That guard appears to throw three punches in Doussept’s direction and then holds him down, as well.

Doussept, who is 5-10 and says he weighs 135 pounds, is pinned to the ground and blocked from view by the guards.

Doussept was detained before the Calgary Police Service arrived. No charges were laid that night.

Officials with Alberta Justice and Solicitor General said they are aware of 16 complaints of excessive force by the province’s 17,000-plus security guards since tighter rules for the industry were instituted two years ago.

The new law requires guards to complete a 40-hour course and to not have any convictions for serious offences in the past five years.

In the wake of the Chinook Centre incident, Linda McKay-Panos, executive director of the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, questioned whether those requirements were adequate.

“We don’t know exactly what happened before the camera started rolling in this case, but I am concerned there may be a lack of training of security guards of what is a reasonable use of force,” McKay-Panos said.

Security guards do not have the same use of force authority that a police officer would have, said Doug King, a professor of justice studies at Mount Royal University. In the course of arresting someone, that guard can use as much reasonable force as necessary to protect him or herself. But he or she can’t use excessive force, he said, and there’s no exact formula for determining when the line gets crossed.

Ross McLeod, president of the Association of Professional Security Agencies, said many companies would like to provide additional training to their staff, but are hard pressed to afford it when clients refuse to pay more than $25 an hour for security guard services.

Doussept said he had just finished a 10-hour shift as a cook at a downtown restaurant when Angie Bateman, 32, picked him up for a date — their first. They bought movie tickets and then decided to wander Chinook Centre before the film started. Doussept, who said he was exhausted, sat down on the escalator.

That got the attention of two security guards, he said. They told him to stand up. A verbal exchange followed. When Doussept got off the escalator, they followed him, he said. His face and neck tattoos tend to draw negative attention, he said, and he felt they were judging him by how he looked.

The conversation got more intense, he said, and he was told to leave the mall. He admits he isn’t the kind of man to stay quiet and that he argued back with the guards. And when one of the guards said that Doussept smelled like marijuana, he admitted that he did have a small baggie on him, for his own personal use.

Things escalated after he stepped outside the mall, Doussept said. There was yelling on both sides. And he admits he resisted the guards, but he said it’s because they were taking shots at him.

“I never, ever raised a hand at them,” he said.

Bateman witnessed the verbal exchange in the mall but said she stepped into a store, on Doussept’s insistence, when Doussept went outside with the guards. But after several minutes had gone by, Bateman followed him outside.

“They were punching him in the side and the ribs. They were kicking and screaming. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do,” Bateman said.

The struggle left Doussept with a concussion, soft tissue damage and cuts to his face and hands, he said. He is considering pressing charges.

A spokeswoman for Chinook Centre said staff are “deeply troubled” by the footage and will take disciplinary action against the guards involved if necessary.

“Given that the matter is now under investigation by the Calgary Police Service we cannot provide further comment,” Stacie Woolford, the marketing manager at Chinook Centre, wrote in an email to the Herald on Monday.

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